Press Releases

Sustainable aquaculture in Australia

Aquaculture is one of the fastest-growing food production sectors in the world. However, irresponsible aquaculture can negatively impact the environment as chemicals can potentially pollute the water and impact the environment. According to Calix, the industry’s key challenge is finding innovative and sustainable aquaculture solutions that contribute to food security, nutrition, livelihoods and economic growth.

John Knights, business manager, Asia, Calix, said: “Australia could become one of the world’s leading providers of seafood. Currently, we import most of the prawns we eat, for example, from Asia. But there is plenty of potential for Australian prawn farms to lead the world. There are many places ripe for creating sustainable prawn farms including northern New South Wales, Townsville, and Darwin.

“With the right approach to prawn farming and other types of aquaculture, not only could we provide our own produce, we could also export much more to many Asian countries, such as Japan and Korea, who pay top price for quality produce, as well as Europe and the USA. These countries are looking for reputable, clean sources of food.”

One of the most important ways to help Australian aquaculture businesses succeed is to make it easy for them to farm sustainably and cleanly. Calix has developed a mineral honeycomb technology called AQUA-Cal+. The product is claimed to be a safe, environmentally friendly water conditioner that directly addresses problems associated with intense aquaculture such as disease and pollution, and delivers improved feed performance and yield.

“Results from testing on both Pacific White Shrimp and Tiger Prawn farms show that AQUA-Cal+ has a superior performance and economic benefit to the farmer compared to other methods such as administering probiotics,” said Knights.

The solution is based on natural mineral raw material; no chemicals are used during production. It works by digesting the toxic sludge that can build up in aquaculture ponds. This sludge is currently dumped or digestion using a probiotic is attempted, which produces bio-products that need to be further treated with harsh chemicals. The water conditioner is claimed to digest the pond sludge quicker than current methods while absorbing waste bio-products. These are then converted into a slow-release fertiliser, which dissolves into the water enhancing the natural algae, which is food for prawns and shrimp.

Ultimately, Calix takes a natural product and activates this by calcination and hydration. AQUA-Cal+ is dosed into aquaculture ponds to enhance and improve aerobic digest of toxic sludge. The by-product of digestion helps to feed the fish, prawn or shrimp without dumping toxic material, making the whole system sustainable.

Calix eyes $20m ASX listing to scale sewer stink stopper

The company which stops Sydney's sewers from stinking too much is sniffing out an ASX listing in the next 12 months.

Calix made $3.6 million in 2016-17 selling a compound which it claims is neutralising sulphuric acid in 90 per cent of Sydney's wastewater pipes, not only stopping concrete corrosion but the production of gas which unchecked would "stink unbearably", according to managing director Phil Hodgson.

Different applications of the compound are also balancing acidity in Filipino prawn farms, and stopping the spread of fungus and pests in Tasmanian tomato crops.

An Australian company getting on with CO2reduction

September 2017

The global need to reduce CO2is clear, however Europe and the UK are steamrolling Australia when it comes to acting, according to Calix, a multi-award-winning Australia technology company that is developing new processes and materials to solve global challenges.

Dr Mark Sceats, executive director & chief scientist, Calix, said, “CO2reduction is a global problem that will impact future generations if it is not addressed on a global scale. In Europe, for example, discussions with engineers centre on getting on with addressing CO2reduction. In Australia, there is still seems to be an ongoing debate about whether human greenhouse gas emissions are impacting the environment at all, which is a waste of time and energy, and is stymieing innovation and action.

“More than 10 years ago, Calix found that advancing our CO2capture technology in Australia just wasn’t possible because there wasn’t demand for it here. We therefore moved the research and development to Europe and the UK, where there was more interest in advancing it, so that we could be in a better position to solve this global challenge.”

Calix engineers and scientists are leading the Low Emissions Intensity Lime and Cement (LEILAC) project, as a European-Australian collaboration, which includes a consortium of some of the world’s largest cement, lime, and engineering companies, as well as leading research and environmental institutions.

Calix has also won funding from both the UK (DECC) and EU (ASCENT Project) to develop Calix's ENDEX Reactor Technology, which introduces significant new options for energy generation organisations seeking to reduce CO2emissions.

According to Calix, Australian companies are starting to get on board.

Dr Mark Sceats said, “The 2015 COP21 Paris Agreement, of which Australia is a part, was a turning point for Australian businesses. There is no doubt companies are looking at the future and their investments with a careful eye on CO2emissions reductions. They are assessing the risks, and the highest risk can be to do nothing because there will eventually be a significant price on CO2emissions. It is also timely for the government to step in to accelerate the uptake of new, low emissions technologies”.

“It takes a long time for the ship of innovation to change course to address large issues, such as CO2emissions, but it is in the interests of every nation to do so.”

The recent OECD report "Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth" shows that integrating measures to tackle climate change into regular economic policyincreasesthe average GDP of G20 economies by 5% compared to current policies.[1]

Dr Mark Sceats said, “Calix has been working hard for the last 10 years to take a technology from a concept and scale it up to a commercial scale, as we successfully seek to provide a range of industries with very cost-effective, low-carbon, production options. That has been done in Australia for magnesite processes, and is being done in Europe for lime and cement. Our next challenge is to couple our technology to renewable energy to make zero and negative emissions products. This work has now started, and is progressing rapidly.”

63 ways to cut the global warming impact of cement

By David Thorpe

6 December 2016

Cement production is the third-most polluting industry in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, behind chemicals/petrochemicals and iron and steel.

Last month the University of East Anglia published research that claimed an average of 42 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the creation of cement were actually recouped from the atmosphere once the concrete is in situ.

This is good news, if true, but work is still needed to reduce the carbon footprint of cement in order to prevent disastrous global warming, and the opportunity exists to turn cement from climate change villain to climate change hero by making it carbon negative – that is, absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than was used to produce it.

This article examines the nature of cement and concrete, ways to reduce the impact of its present production processes, and novel substitutes and means of production that, if successful at scale, will eradicate greenhouse gas emissions from its lifecycle.

All in all, this adds up to around 63 ways to cut the global warming impact of cement.

Calix Nano-active materials

in collaboration with Australian Synchotron, supporting commercial innovation.

15 September 2016

Calix Limited accessed the Australian Synchrotron through the NISA scheme to investigate the properties of its nano-active powdered minerals – prepared through a patented process for a range of health, agricultural, energy and water management uses – to correlate changes in the nanoscale structure to observed improved product performance.

Analysis using the Small and Wide Angle X-Ray Scattering (SAXS/WAXS) beamline identified the unique structures of Calix’s minerals, at a characteristic length scale of about six nanometres, and showed that the structures’ total surface area, including pores and internal chambers, changed in a predictable and controllable manner during production.

The research confirmed Calix’ patented techniques provide consistent and reliable production control over the nano-structures and confirm a measurement technique that can be used to correlate the nanostructures in the particles to the observed bioactivity of Calix products, aiding the development of powdered products to limit the spread of pathogens across biologically-sensitive industries in a way that is safe to humans and animals.

Joint development of Myrtle Springs operations

with Archer Exploration Limited.

28 July 2016

Calix is pleased to announce execution of an MOU regarding joint development of its Myrtle Springs operation with Archer Exploration Limited (www.archerexploration.com.au, ASX: AXE).

The non-binding MOU outlines the broad terms under which the parties will work together towards a binding Supply Agreement that will enable Archer to move more quickly to develop its business, whilst at the same time provide Calix with mining synergies.

Cement firms pilot new type of plant to slash carbon by 95%

By David Rogers

26 April 2016

Cement makers have long been criticised for being heavy industrial polluters, but now a consortium of international firms is building a new kind of plant in Belgium which they say could capture more than 95% of CO2 emissions from lime and cement manufacturing.

This new “direct separation” technology adds potentially no additional energy costs and can slash the environmental impact of an industry that is responsible for 5% of global carbon emissions, participants in the pilot claim.

Part-funded by the European Union (EU), the plant will be built at the HeidelbergCement site in Lixhe, Belgium once necessary permits have been secured, and will then undergo two years of extensive testing.

The project is being led by an industry grouping called the Low Emissions Intensity Lime and Cement consortium (LEILAC), which includes HeidelbergCement of Germany, Mexico’s Cemex, UK materials firm Tarmac and Calix, an Australian mineral-processing and carbon capture technology company.